


Knowledge Management

by phalangine



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Jewish Character, Implied Alex/Armando, Libraries, M/M, background irene/raven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 11:06:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6953965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phalangine/pseuds/phalangine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After one week under new management, a sign pops up outside the Westchester Free Library. <i>First rule for success in the library: don't rile the librarian.</i></p><p>The day after it goes up, a hasty addendum is added in spray paint. <i>No really don't do it.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowledge Management

**Author's Note:**

> This is essentially ten, largely unrelated snapshots mapping the progress of Charles and Erik, and I just wanted to play around, so the plot is nonexistent. Translations of Yiddish available in the end notes. One is a minor plot spoiler- if you can call it a spoiler when you already know how this is going to work out- in the 700s, but it’s obvious and easy to avoid if you want.

**000: Generalities**

After one week under new management, a sign pops up outside the Westchester Free Library. _First rule for success in the library: don't rile the librarian._

The day after it goes up, a hasty addendum is added in spray paint. _No really don't do it._

Charles makes his first visit half a year after the new librarian takes over. The entire county is full of rumors, the gleeful buzz so loud it made it all the way into Charles' workshop. Raven is largely responsible for that, but Irene is hardly any better. She's always coming in, full of gossip, giving Charles significant looks without explaining why.

He's still considering the scrawled warnings when the automatic doors whoosh open and a voice booms, "Mr. Drake! You will put that back where you found it, or so help me, you will explain to your mother what you were looking at!"

A child squeaks, and in a sudden burst of chill, Charles finds himself no longer coasting forward in a pleasant, controlled roll but thrown into a wild skid across the floor. Something passes him in a blur of heavy breathing and neon colors-

His horizontal freefall comes to a gut-wrenching stop just as a man with the prickliest mind Charles has ever felt rounds a corner, clad in a sharp suit, one hand extended. He hardly spares Charles a second glance, narrowed eyes following the icy path. On the inside, his mind is lashing with the urge to continue his scolding. Past that, though, is a resigned sense of _what a mess_ and, disconcertingly, a vague, undefined contentment. It's gentle and indirect but thoroughly suffused across his mind.

Then his attention is diverted from his troublesome charge to something that makes his mind shudder with interest.

Just as quickly, Charles finds himself firmly- gently but uncompromisingly- nudged back into his own head.

Blushing furiously, Charles stammers out an apology. He does have good manners. Invading minds is terribly rude, no matter how unintentional and startled he was.

Prickly Man waves his fumbling aside. "Hello," he says, smiling widely around a mouth full of shiny white teeth. Despite the ease with which he crosses the ice, a wave of discomfort laps at his mind, strong enough to make its way into Charles' awareness. The hand he thrusts at Charles demands shaking; he wants Charles to take it, Charles realizes after a moment of confusion. The man is very much interested in Charles shaking his hand. It tickles at Charles. Friendly and suggestive, a finger trailing across sensitive skin, it's simple human intrigue. _I see you. Who are you?_

"Erik Lehnsherr, head librarian," the man says. "Can I help you?"

"Charles Xavier," Charles says, accepting the hand and doing his best not to react to the secondhand satisfaction that rolls through him at the touch. "I don't suppose you've anything on mechanical engineering?"

Lehnsherr's smile turns wolfish.

 

 

 

**100: Philosophy & Psychology**

A few days after his exciting introduction to the local library, Charles returns first thing in the morning in the hopes he'll get to spend a quiet hour or two studying in one of the study rooms Erik showed him.

Two hours after he arrived, Charles has a number of books Erik promised were up to date and respectable. One even came with Erik's personal recommendation, which Charles suspects is a hard award to earn. The rest of his plan has been abandoned, as Charles is no longer in the quiet room. How it happened escapes him. All he knows for certain is it's surprisingly roomy behind the circulation desk and if something doesn't change, Charles is going to lose his battle not to laugh in a loud, mortifying way. He can hardly look to his left without spluttering.

Next to him, Erik has spent the last thirty seconds locked in a staring contest with the most recent patron come to borrow one of his books.

Eyes still locked on his opponent, Erik deliberately eases away, sitting back in his seat with the air of a lord petitioned by a lowly peasant. "Ms. Munroe," he says slowly, with all the melodrama of a Bond villain. "Another puppy book, I see."

His pint-sized adversary favors him with a solemn nod. "I like puppies. They're cute."

Echoing the action, Erik gives a knowing hum. "They are very cute. But are they cuter than kittens?"

A snort escapes Charles' hold. Neither Erik nor the little girl acknowledges him.

It takes Ororo some time to work through the question. Charles distracts himself from the urge to laugh by letting himself soak up the feeling of her childish mind methodically working through the angles of the question. She likes fluffy husky puppies more than smooth kitties, but chubby little kitties are more appealing to her than some of the wrinklier kinds of dogs. It's a genuine conundrum.

Erik, meanwhile, is practically glowing. He's having the time of his life with this- his mind is almost purring with delight. Only a tick in the corner of his mouth is giving him away, though, and little Ororo is more than preoccupied enough with solving the problem presented to her not to notice.

A few people in line behind her are less than enthused by the standoff, but none of them is about to mention it. _Rule number one_ is front and center of their minds. Charles is dying to take a peek and see what Erik did to instill this level of discipline into Westchester's unruly upper class. He doesn't give into the temptation, much as he'd like. Besides being unconscionably rude, he'd like to hear Erik tell him in person. He has the look of a man who would enjoy sharing a good tale. An abrupt mental snap like a book slamming shut blares out of Ororo, immediately followed by a reluctant admittance of, "Sometimes."

Erik chuckles. Now letting his pleasure show on his face, he picks up the library card and massive tome of dog breeds clearly intended for an older audience than the primary schooler currently hoping to check it out with one hand while the other waves a scanner over. "An honest answer," he hums. Ororo beams. "Good girl. And good children-"

"Get stickers!" Ororo immediately slaps her hands over her mouth. "Sorry, Mr. Lehnsherr."

Charles- there's no dignified way to describe it- titters. Between Erik's crumbling resolve to remain unmoved and Ororo's overdramatic fear of an afternoon without getting a sticker it's a wonder he's lasted as long as he has.

Pausing theatrically, clearly reveling in his captive audience's attention, Erik levels the girl with a searching look before gesturing a drawer open and spending an excessive amount of time pretending to look around inside before deliberately tearing off a specific sticker.

"You may have this," he drawls, holding out the prize, "but only if you can tell me what letter this is."

Craning his neck, Charles steals a glance at the roll of stickers. All he sees is a vague squiggle, but Ororo's brow furrows with thought. A moment later, she perks up. "Hey!"

"Two for two," Erik praises, pleased and indulgent, "very good. Go on. Take your prize."

She doesn't need to be told twice. Happy little fingers collect the reward, and her smile turns into a true grin. It only takes her a moment to get her haul scooped up in her arms and be most of the way out with a cheerful, "Bye, Mr. Lehnsherr!"

Erik watches her go with such a sense of pride it almost masks the dull pang in his chest.

The line moves forward, and Charles loses the opportunity to wonder about the flicker of desolation that had twisted through his new friend. As the next person plops their DVDs on the desk, Charles watches Erik snap his emotions behind an impressive wall of indifference. Outwardly, the man is merely returned to his professional façade, but his mind still hums with an echo of that flash of that agony.

When Charles eventually gets ready to leave, it's hardly an hour before the library closes. He had a good time, but he can't help but notice that Erik spent most of the day vaguely unsettled. The cause is clearly personal. To anyone it would be. To Erik, who guards himself against unsolicited attention, the idea of asking bears no consideration. Regardless, Charles finds himself wanting to question him about the pain Erik's been trying to ignore since the sticker incident. It has the texture of a slow-healing wound; if Charles could only feel it out, he might be able place a bandage over it and lessen the pain.

Instead, he wishes Erik a good night and tells himself not to be ridiculous when Erik's response is a distracted grunt.

 

 

 

**200: Religion**

Charles has been watching Erik shelve books for too long. He can't recall any of what he just read. The material interesting, or was before Erik came in and began bending over to reach the bottom shelves and stretching up to reach the ones on the top. Intellectually, Charles had known Erik has a good body. He just hadn't correctly estimated how good.

If he isn't careful, he's going to embarrass himself the next time Erik squats down and his immaculately pressed trousers pull tight across his backside.

Curling his hands into fists, which has nothing to do with inappropriate thoughts about how it would feel to get a handful of one full cheek, Charles clears his throat and refocuses.

It works for about a minute. Then he hears something rustling, and when he looks up, Erik is shedding his suit jacket.

Today, Charles thinks in resignation as Erik rolls up his sleeves, is not going to be his day.

He keeps up the façade of reading, rather than peeping, despite Erik's obliviousness. The man really doesn't have the body of a man whose job involves hours of sitting. Maybe it's just because Charles has had something of a dry spell for the last... while, but everything about Erik is appealing, from his trim hips and trimmer waist to his shapely thighs and too many teeth.

When he finally gets to Charles' side of the room, Erik's face has a light flush, his hair ruffled out of its usual smooth coiffure and curling over his forehead. Catching Charles looking, he raises his brows.

For lack of any better idea, Charles shrugs. Hopefully it doesn't come across as guilty as he feels.

Whatever it looks like, it brings out one of Erik's little smiles.

"Like what you see?"

Charles blanches. Pardon?"

"The book." Erik pauses his shelving long enough to gesture at the page Charles is supposedly reading. "Has it been helpful?"

"Oh, yes," he lies, hoping the book is as good as he thinks it was. "Very helpful. You're a lifesaver, really. I never would have found it on my own."

"Good. If everyone could find what they wanted without me, I'd be out a job. It's part of why I do things the way I do," Erik confides conspiratorially. "If my systems are complex enough, no one will want to try to usurp them."

Snorting, Charles abandons the last pretense of reading. He turns toward the cart, which Erik parked near enough that Charles can read the spines but not so near that it's in the way, and peers curiously at them.

"Prayer books," Erik explains as if sensing his confusion. "These are in Hebrew, this one is in Yiddish, and the ones at the end are in English." He holds one of the English books out, which Charles takes carefully.

He opens the cover and flips through a few pages, but he quickly wishes he could give it back. Which Erik does with one of the dark looks Charles is learning mean he's upset but not enough to say anything. Yet. Still, Charles can't help but be glad he isn't holding it anymore; it felt sacrilegious to hold a book of prayers when he was just imagining Erik naked and sweaty. He can hardly tell his friend that, though.

Casting about for something to break the uncomfortable silence that's settled between them, Charles glances at the shelves behind him. It takes him a moment, but- "Are of those all prayer books?"

Erik glances up from the cart with an expression of almost ferocious glee.

" _Siddurim_ , yes. I'd hate for patrons to have difficulty finding them."

"Naturally," Charles replies, matching Erik's light tone. "I only mention it because I don't seem to see many Bibles." Or any.

Erik tsks, unrepentantly smug. "There must be one. I'm sure it's floating around here somewhere..."

Following the tilt of Erik's head leads Charles' eyes to the crowded corner of the bookshelf on the far wall.

"You- You're terrible," he splutters, trying to keep his voice from squeaking.

Erik only shrugs. His mind, however, where it nudges slyly against Charles', is happily unrepentant.

 

 

 

**300: Social Sciences**

Over time, it occurs to Charles that maybe he isn't just feeling attracted to Erik because he's gone without sex for too long. Maybe his appreciation of Erik's body is rooted in more than simple appreciation.

He develops a Pavlovian response to Erik's presence. See Erik, get a little bit hard. Blush, get teased for turning red about whatever silly subject Erik is discussing with his patrons.

To his relief, between his condition and the thick cardigans he takes to donning against he library's frigid summer air conditioning, the only way to tell is by looking specifically at his lap. Which no one does. Thankfully.

Who knew his paralysis would save him from embarrassment? Charles certainly never did.

He and Erik spend August discussing the ramifications of underfunding education, mutant integration, mutant separatism, and being a mutant at all.

"I think simply being a mutant gave me a leg-up on some of the others," Charles admits one quiet Saturday morning. "I was used to being isolated already. If anything, people have always unsettled me. Though I do like them," he adds quickly.

Erik snorts. "Why? I don't."

"Yes, you do."

"Do not."

"Do so!" Chuckling, Charles shares a memory of Erik helping Darwin with the boy's term paper. "Any time one of them comes up and asks you about a book they want, you get this look on your face like you've never heard anything more interesting. It's sweet."

He only says so because no one is around. Erik would never stand for looking soft in front of the general public. As much as he enjoys being helpful, he has his limits- as do the people who come to New York's information wizard, as Alex calls him.

Given the way some people look at Erik, Charles is disinclined to push his friend on it.

"You said your mutation isolated you," Erik says out of nowhere, startling Charles from his reverie. "How?"

"It's invasive." Charles shrugs. "Never mind that studies have found we're more prone to accidents of projecting than reading and our ability to change perceptions is our weakest. But I'm not bitter."

He is bitter, though. All his life he's been ostracized. First for his family's former wealth, then for his gift, and now for his chair. It gets lonely, and Charles has never tolerated loneliness well. He's actually rather surprised that Erik has been so comfortable with his gift. Even without looking, he can tell from the shape of Erik's mind that he is a man who values his secrets. Charles ought to be anathema to him.

Instead, Erik treats him with unusual warmth. He no more shies from Charles' mutation than he does from Charles' chair, and Erik is fascinated by Charles' chair.

He is quiet about it, but Erik is quite intrigued by the idea of a living surrounded by metal. Someday Charles will have to talk to him about that. Just not this one. He wants to enjoy the positive attention while it's there.

 

 

**400: Languages**

One thing Charles learned fairly quickly about Erik was to listen to the tenor of his mind, or to focus on his expression, rather than his tone of voice. It's the opposite of the usual advice. Rather than ignoring his tone and analyzing the words, with Erik, Charles has to heed his tone and ignore the words. Erik's more than most don't truly relay his meaning.

The corollary is Erik loves to talk. More than that, he loves to debate. Absolutely fucking adores it. He wants to come out with the better theory, but he'll enjoy himself just as much if he doesn't. It took Charles an embarrassing amount of time to figure the last part out, even longer to realize what it means for talking with the man.

"You're a prick," he hisses. It's a Thursday afternoon, Erik is cleaning the books in the children's area, and other than them, Darwin the clerk is the only other person in the building. The boy has a fantastic mutation- reactive evolution, it's endlessly fascinating. It doesn't only respond to potentially fatal situations, Charles recently discovered; it also does things like shut off his hearing to let him study in peace when the library is otherwise occupied. He's the only one who comes in to work when the place is full of children. So Erik and Charles are free to talk as if they were alone.

Erik shrugs, but his mouth twitches into one of his smug little smiles.

Charles marvels at him. "You're a troll. A living, breathing human incarnation of an internet troll. You _wanted_ to provoke that bigot into an argument."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"My friend, I simply don't want to get caught up in the fallout when he goes on a rant online and catches the attention of Humanity First."

"Is that all?" Erik asks airily. His gaze is sharp when he glances over.

To argue or not to argue, that is the eternal question when dealing with Erik Lehnsherr. Indulge him and stoke his mood brighter or refuse and bring his mood down. Charles is fortunate. He knows what Erik is really asking.

"That and I would be very unhappy if anything happened to you. I doubt your successor would be able to get me my books so quickly."

It startles a laugh out of Erik, who leans a little harder against Charles' chair.

"You know, I'm starting to think you keep me around because you can lean harder on my chair than on a person."

"Not at all," Erik soothes. "I keep you around because it makes you shorter than me, which strokes my delicate ego."

Charles doesn't elbow him in the ribs, but it's a near thing. "You'd still be taller than me even if I could stand up."

"Really?"

"Don't sound so pleased." It occurs to Charles that of course Erik doesn't know how tall he is. He would have had to sit down and intentionally work out how long the parts of Charles' chair are and how far his knees and his head stick out. The man is a poster child for career anal retentives, but he isn't that obsessive. "I was five-seven at the time of the accident. You, I believe, are taller than that."

True to form, as soon as he heard the word five, Erik had begun to smile. He's outright beaming when he says, "So you were always short."

"Make a short joke," Charles tells him. "I dare you."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

Not an hour later, Charles is attempting to free his jacket from the hook when he hears the patter of a familiar gait.

"Need some help?" Erik asks, eyes alight.

"Just get it down."

"You wound me, my friend. It isn't my fault you're so... compact."

Charles feels Erik's amusement at the deliberate obfuscation and scowls. "Ha. Ha. You're hilarious. What's next? Are you going to wonder at my 'fun size' clothes?"

"I wasn't intending to," Erik says mildly, his tone betrayed by the burst of amusement in his mind, "but now that you mention it..." He holds up Charles' jacket, comparing the length of the sleeve to his rather longer arm.

"Go back to work, you insufferable giant."

Erik shakes his head as he returns Charles' jacket. "I'm not a giant. I'm exactly average."

"Not protesting the insufferable bit, though, are you?" Charles shrugs the jacket on. "Admirably self-aware, that."

"I'm little else," Erik says softly, and suddenly he isn't joking anymore. His brows have pulled together over his nose, his mouth twitched up crookedly. On anyone else, Charles would swear the expression was pained; on Erik, it's too many emotions at once to find a single cause. "Get home safely, my friend."

Raising a hand, he pats Charles' shoulder before turning and walking away.

Charles spends the entire trip back to his apartment torn between confusion at the inexplicable change in his friend and self-recrimination over the absurd notion that it wasn't Charles' shoulder Erik had meant to touch.

 

***

 

“Say it again.”

Erik frowns. “No.”

“Come on. Please?”

Today is one of the library’s slow days. Hank is in the back doing repairs, Armando is in the study room with the boy he’s tutoring, and Erik is cleaning up the children’s section. Charles, for lack of anything more interesting to do, is helping him. His tasks feel suspiciously like busy work, but he isn’t about to complain. Cleaning the messy covers of children’s books is rather difficult to mess up. On the other hand, helping Erik would mean dusting. Charles was never fond of dusting, and Erik has a particular order of doing tasks that would render Charles’ efforts at cleaning null.

At some point, silent maintenance turned into a game of human dictionary. With Charles’ French weaker than Erik’s and his Russian too weak for anything more advanced than “good morning,” it quickly devolved into Charles getting Erik to say things in Yiddish.

Incredible to discover how much of his vocabulary is crass Yiddish.

“Come on,” Charles presses. “Just once.”

Grumbling something too low to understand, Erik takes a moment to reconcile himself to the inevitable before he twists to glare at Charles over his shoulder. “Der Shrek.”

“And what does that mean?” Charles hiccups.

Erik narrows his eyes, but Charles can see the twitch in the corner of his lips. “Fear, Charles. It means fear.”

They get through two more shelves before Erik gives in and flops down on the floor next to him. A few back and forths pass, adding to Charles’ lexicon of creative profanity and Hebrew praises. Erik has warmed to his subject, his posture relaxed where he’s slouched against the wall next to him.

Charles, naturally, ruins it. “Erik?”

_“Yo?”_

“D’you have a favorite word- in Yiddish, that is?”

It’s a stupid question. Besides being inane, it’s interrupting flow. Just because Erik has a favorite word in English (“‘Fuck,’ naturally. It’s versatile and makes your puritanical countrymen twitch”) doesn’t mean he would have one in Yiddish.

Oddly, Erik doesn’t dismiss him out of hand. He considers the question for longer than Charles thinks such fluff is due. His mind stumbles over something too deep for Charles to read without crossing a line, but he shakes it off to say, _“Du gefelst mir zaier.”_

“ _Du_ is you and _mir_ is me,” Charles thinks aloud. “I know that much. What does the rest mean?”

Erik only shakes his head, a tight smile pulling his lips. There’s no time for Charles to push for an answer. Darwin and his student- Alex, Charles remembers- come waltzing past, headed to the circulation desk, and Erik is on his feet, jogging away.

Charles’ disappointment fades a little when he notices the spring in Darwin’s step and the furious blush on the other boy’s face. The face Erik makes at him as the two make a beeline for the doors is absurd; coupled with the way he looks pointedly at the awkward angle poor Alex is holding his books in front of his groin, Charles is lucky he holds the laughter in as long as he does.

He suspects Alex won’t be looking him in the eye for a while yet.

 

 

 

**500: Natural Sciences & Mathematics**

“You didn’t tell me you’re a professor.”

Charles snorts. As much as he generally dislikes disingenuous displays of emotion, he can’t help but find the pouty expression levied against him amusing. No one as stern as Erik should be so good at putting on such an adorable sulk. The expression is ridiculous and, thankfully, so exaggerated even Charles can tell the man is hamming it up. “It never came up.”

“That’s a poor excuse.”’

“Says the man who used to be a DA.”

Waving that off, Erik returns to his original point. “What do you teach?”

“I think I’d rather make you guess,” Charles says airily. He can feel Erik chewing the idea over, that quick mind of his weighing pros and cons invisible to Charles. The feeling is remarkable despite the distance; Erik’s forcefulness of thought, if not clarity, is more than interesting enough to make up for the dictates of polite telepathic boundaries.

“Well, we can eliminate fashion, Professor _Sveter_.”

“Don’t be an ass,” Charles grumbles.

Erik ignores that, and drops by periodically over the course of the day to make his guesses. Some are clearly the result of the man’s perverse sense of humor- dermatology and sexology, though delivered in the same dry, slightly curious tone as every other discipline, were accompanied by bursts of joy from Erik’s mind. Others are more serious. English literature, economics, and, naturally, engineering.

When Charles narrows his search to the sciences, Erik immediately makes the jump to medicine. Getting that right puts a spring in his step that doesn’t fade when his next guess falls short.

“Biology!” Charles reveals, his will to live frayed by Erik’s delighted recitation of pseudosciences. “I’m a geneticist, all right?”

Somehow he hadn’t anticipated how well Erik receive that. “Genetics? So you study DNA- with an emphasis on mutations, no?” Charles nods, and Erik curls closer toward him. “I’d like to hear more about that when you have the time.”

Charles, it turns out, has a lot of time for Erik.

 

 

 

**600: Technology (Applied Sciences)**

“You,” Erik breathes, “are a pig.”

Charles throws his best glower at him, but it’s difficult when he has to look over a heap of Tupperware to find Erik’s ugly mug. “You’re an awful guest. When someone lets you into their home, you’re supposed to lie and tell them everything is nice.”

“The Torah forbids lying.”

“As I recall, it also forbids coveting your neighbor’s ass.”

Erik huffs, but Charles senses his friend’s amusement. Erik can protest all he likes; his mind can’t hide his love of puns. Drawing himself up, Erik plasters on a look of forced innocence. “So? I covet nothing.”

“That’s not what your landlady says.” Erik’s nose flares, and Charles knows he has him. “You talk to yourself very loudly, you know. She’s overheard all sorts of things. Like how much you wish our library had gotten that grant rather than Lewisboro.”

“You’re lying.”

For once, Charles is being completely honest. Mrs. Rosenbaum is a wonderful snoop and an incorrigible gossip. They’re having lunch next Sunday. “Are you sure about that?”

“As sure as I am that you are a pig,” Erik mutters. Glancing around, he takes a loud sniff. “This place stinks. My soul is getting dirty just being in this cave of _goyische_ iniquity.”

“The faster you help me clean up, the faster you can get out.”

 _I could just leave now,_ Erik thinks loudly. He doesn’t move to follow through, instead gesturing Charles’ chair up from the floor where he dropped it earlier and positioning it so Charles can slide into it. He neither watches nor pointedly ignores Charles as he pulls himself up and heaves himself into place. His mind has moved on, his thoughts consumed with assessments of Charles’ childhood home.

The house itself only makes him distantly curious, which is a relief considering Charles had been worried it would put Erik off. Most of Erik’s thoughts are along the lines of _that is too much takeout, should open one of those giant windows and Let the smell out, decent taste in whisky if nothing else, are those-_

“Whoops,” Charles interrupts, quickly scooping up the garment that got Erik’s attention so quickly. “You can just ignore that.”

Pot stirrer that he is, Erik doesn’t leave off. “But, Charles, this is a side of you I’ve never seen before,” he purrs. “I had no idea you were so kinky.”

Charles’ face heats. “Sod off. It was a gag gift.”

“Of course it was. Your skin is far too pale for that shade of green, and the lace is so cheap, it must itch like-”

“Finish that thought, and I’ll sit with Logan all next week.”

The threat is empty. Charles enjoys Logan’s company and would normally enjoy the man’s friendly way of flirting, but whenever Erik is at hand, which he would be in his library, Charles winds up sitting forgotten at the table while the two of them engage in the most ridiculous alpha male posturing. Trying to loom over each other- as if Erik has to try and Logan, who is shorter than Charles, has a chance of standing taller than Erik- was the most recent spectacle. Before that was who could be more helpful to Charles- neither as it turned out, though it did give Charles the chance to snap at both of them and be mollified the next day a hangdog Logan bearing a bouquet of flowers he insisted were from his foster daughter and a stiff Erik silently fussing at him until Charles told him to fuck off and do his job. Charles has never spent more than an hour or so with their short Canadian acquaintance. The idea of spending an entire week with two grown men acting like horny frat boys has as much appeal as wrangling the real thing.

Erik knows all of this. He also knows Charles would follow through.

At least, Charles hopes he does.

He really doesn’t want to deal with that.

“As you wish,” Erik says, demonstrating he does have more sense than combativeness. “If I must choose between it and that furry eyesore, I’ll let the bra remain a mystery.”

“Good man. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I need a waz like you wouldn’t believe.”

Erik’s noise of disgust follows him all the way to the _en suite_ bath. “Do take your time,” he calls a minute after Charles shuts the door. “I’ll do all the dishes if you promise not to stink when you come out.”

Charles doesn’t bother answering. There’s no shower down here, as Erik well knows, and Charles isn’t about to climb into the sink. If even if he were in the mood to, he only has dirty clothes to put on afterwards. Erik will have to endure.

 

***

 

Erik collapses on the sofa next to Charles with a groan. “Just for the record, that was not a ‘bit of a mess.’”

“Sure it was,” Charles insists. If it comes out tired rather than insistent, that’s not his problem. “No blood, no shattered glass, no disembodied ears-”

“Tell me you’re joking.”

“- just food mess. And no, I’m not joking. I wish I were.”

“What, did Uncle Kenneth have too much mulled wine?”

Flopping an arm at what’s probably Erik, Charles corrects him. “Cousins Beatrice and Maximilian, actually. And it was Jello shots. Easters with the Xaviers got wild back in the day.”

“Easter?”

“Of course. They could hardly re-enact Gethsemane at Christmas. Peter had to wait for Spring, and so did the cousins. Really, Erik. Read a Bible.”

Catching Erik off-guard is a delight. No matter how tired his body feels, his entire psyche lights up. Disbelief, suspicion, horror- he cycles through the whole spectrum of emotions, all of it overlaid with the feeling that if Charles is making this up, he’s a better liar than previously thought.

It’s possible that Charles isn’t keeping to the telepathic code of conduct at the moment.

“For what it’s worth, we did manage to get cousin and ear to the ER in time for it to be reattached,” Charles recalls. “Coincidentally, the surgeon was one of yours. He made an excellent Jesus- not that we told him so. Wouldn’t want to worry him.”

Erik’s mind is unappeased. “That’s barbaric.”

“Is it? Maybe I’m telling it wrong. Maxi swore it went down rather well in AA.”

“You do realize it’s not good that AA is the least tragic part of that story, don’t you?”

As it happens, Charles does realize that. Sort of. He realizes that in Erik’s world, alcoholism is a sad thing. They have different worlds, though, Erik and him. Everyone has. Charles recognizes that now, or else recognizes the importance of it. Too late for Moira and Wade, but he does see it.

It’s hardly the widest rift between them, but it makes Charles sad all the same. He would like to keep Erik if he can. As only a friend if that is all Erik will allow him, so long as he can spend his days listening to this prickly pain in the ass try to cover up his marshmallow center with prickers. Someday the rift will grow too wide for even Erik to bridge it, and Charles hates knowing that he will have to bear witness to it.

“Charles?”

Peeking one eye open, Charles discovers Erik leaning toward him with the heavy wrinkles between his brows that proclaims Erik’s concern.

Damn the man.

“Yes, darling?”

“Are you all right?”

 _No._ “Just tired. I wasn’t drooling, was I?”

Erik grunts.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no, Charles, you’re too mature to drool like a sleepy toddler.’

“No, Charles. You don’t drool like a toddler. You drool like an old man.”

He isn’t lying, Charles realizes with a sinking feeling. His face is suspiciously slimy and cold. _When did I fall asleep?_   “I don’t like you.”

“Self-fulfilling prophecy,” Erik counsels sagely, ignoring him. He even nods along as if impressed with his great wisdom. “Dress like the man you want to be, my friend.”

“Well, I look forward to your career in low-rent porn,” Charles counters archly. “That is what you’re aiming for, isn’t it? Otherwise you can’t possibly excuse that mess on your lip.”

Before Erik can do more than make an indignant o with his lips, Charles grabs the takeout menus and tosses them at him. “Your choice.”

Erik takes one look at the top one, makes an unhappy noise, and tosses the lot on the table. “No. I just spent an hour getting noodles out of your carpet. We’re eating something homemade.”

“About that. The fridge is-”

“Empty. I figured it would be.” Pausing to yawn, Erik stretches his arms up and out, twisting until his spine audibly cracks. “That’s why I came with my own,” he sighs, settling back on the sofa for a moment, only to change his mind and rearrange himself. What follows is burst of chaotic wriggling that ends with Erik’s legs draped over one of the sofa’s arms and his head in Charles’ lap. “Sleep now,” he orders as he hauls himself over one final time so he’s resting on his belly with one of Irene’s ugly throw pillows between his face and Charles’ legs. “I’ll cook for us later.”

Charles doesn’t know what to make of this new behavior, so he doesn’t.

 

***

 

“Just out of curiosity, what are the chances of you telling me what happened?”

Charles studies his soup. All things considered, Erik is going easy on him. Neither of them is the type to let things go. It makes butting heads with Erik even worse; on the other hand, it prevents them from sinking into their own heads.

He pushes the bowl away with a sigh. “It’s silly.”

“I don’t doubt that.” At Charles’ sharp look, Erik shrugs. “You’re good at self-destructing. If you were serious, lying about unshowered and covered in old food would have been the least of your problems.”

There are friends Charles has had for years who would never have known that. Or if they did, they would be here begging him to get back in a program, to stop himself from spiraling. Erik can already differentiate between the start of a problem and Charles being who he is.

(What Erik doesn’t know is that it isn’t so much who Charles is as what he is. Blood runs thick, but telepathy is another, fiercer beast. The hunger for drink that hounded him as a boy was not born from DNA but the siren call of his mother’s measure of peace speaking to a part of him only just manifesting.)

“You’ve met my sister,” Charles says for lack of a better beginning.

“And her wife, yes.”

“You’ll know she’s blind, then.”

Erik levels him with a look that suggests Charles shouldn’t waste his time. “I did wonder what that odd stick she kept swinging about was.”

“What you may not know,” Charles presses, “is that my sister is not the most empathetic of people. I love her, and I know she loves Irene. But sometimes love gets in the way. Raven can… forget to be patient. There’s a lot of ego to sort out when you’re with someone who has a disability. What we can do, what we can bear, is finite. My sister has never felt that. I don’t begrudge her health,” he adds quickly. “But it’s tiresome. We can’t just _do_ things. We can’t just get up and _go_.”

Charles’ breath stutters. “You’re supposed to give the ones you love a break when they accidentally push too hard or just don’t think. That’s what we learn as children. But for some of us, giving one break easily becomes two, becomes three, becomes more and more until we’re miserable and the person we meant to cherish is now someone we despise.”

“So you had a fight with your sister,” Erik surmises.

“No. Not until after she had a row with Irene. They were in the kitchen- even without my gift I couldn’t not have heard them. She came to me for comfort, but I couldn’t give it to her.” Chuckling, Charles remembers the beginning of their argument. Same old Raven, not getting why Irene wouldn’t simply trust her to take them away somewhere nice. Same old Charles, making her angrier when he meant to calm her down. Same old siblings, clawing at each other, revisiting old wounds. “We’re a bad fit, Raven and me.”

That makes Erik frown. “She couldn’t talk you up enough when she was in the library.”

“Exactly. The chair is a relatively new addition to my life. Raven’s strategy has largely been to ignore it and continue on as if I were the same man I was before.”

“Have you really changed that mu-” He stops, his mind clamping down hard on that thought. “So I was right when I said you were upset about fighting with Raven.”

Charles shakes his head. “That isn’t a silly reason. What _was_ silly was thinking my side project would be relaxing. Turns out, mutual prestige in biology does not twin me with da Vinci in all ways.” Here at last, the root of his shame. “I’m shit at drawing and not that much better at engineering, and when the damn pencil wouldn’t match what I had in my head, I may have overreacted.”

Erik’s eyes open wide. “All those bits of paper I had to pick out of everything…”

“I’m very good with my hands,” Charles snaps. He can practically feel his hackles rising.

“You,” Erik squeaks. “You threw a tantrum over a _drawing_.”

Shoulders climbing hastily toward his ears, Charles hisses, a tad defensively, “A drawing of a chair that wouldn’t be so damn inconvenient! One that might not give me sores because my arse doesn’t park itself right in any of these existing seats and would have some sort of sensor so when people ram into me I won’t have to worry about tipping over or getting pushed into traffic.”

The smirk is well and truly wiped off Erik’s face, but Charles is good at being prickly, too. “Thank you for your help. I’ll pay you back for the groceries next time I see you, but for now, I’d like to be alone. Getting ready for bed takes me rather longer now.”

Damage done, he rolls away from the table, away from Erik, and doesn’t look back.

Sleep refuses to come. By the time has eleven come and gone, Charles has resigned himself to a glass of milk and a pill. The pill is easy, but unlike his flat, which has a mini fridge on the nightstand with his nighttime milk, the estate only has the refrigerator in the kitchen. Back up and into his chair Charles gets.

He doesn’t realize he isn’t alone until he reaches the kitchen and puts the fact that the light was already on together with the familiar figured hunched over at the table.

“What are you doing here?” Charles calls tiredly.

Erik grunts, which seems to be all he has to say until Charles puts his milk in the microwave. Then Erik’s head pops up and he says, over the loudness of his not-bedhead, “Is this what you were thinking?”

He has fifty seconds, so Charles slides over to the table where he finds Erik hunched over not just a pile of paper but multiple piles and open books. Only one sheet makes it to Charles, which he studies for a long moment. He hadn’t known what to expect, but this…

If he’d had to guess, this wouldn’t have made his top ten. “Is that a retractable canon?”

“What? No, I-” Erik grabs the paper back, stares at it for a long moment. “Shit. This isn’t it. This is- I was just- Please forget about you saw that.”

“You really are tired, aren’t you?” Charles asks, mood brightening. “You just said please.”

Erik blows out a breath. “Don’t be cute. I was trying to- do something. For you. With the chair.”

“Sorry?”

“I saw the books, and when I flipped through them, I found your notes. I thought I might be able to help. What?” he asks, tone daring Charles to fight him. “I was good at physics in school. My father insisted on showing a picture of a dinosaur I drew when I was twelve to the rabbi, so I can’t be that bad.”

Charles searches him for a punchline, some hint of irony, but only finds an honest desire to do something for Charles. To be a good friend.

Apparently, Erik turns into a strangely sweet, finicky, probably unhinged man when he’s tired.

“You’re a love,” Charles tells him. He tries not to smile when Erik grins and puffs himself up, but when he loses, it only makes Erik’s expression soften. “But you need to sleep, and so do I. So let’s head off to bed for now, yeah?”

Not only is Erik an adorable mess when he’s tired, he’s compliant as well.

The fact that he conks out on Charles’ bed after carrying the milk for him is a small thing. He only takes up part of the enormous bed, leaving Charles with plenty of room to slide himself into place.

In the morning, Erik’s only reaction to waking up next to him is to crack one eye open and grumble, “Rich people are supposed to have _nice_ beds.”

 

 

 

**700: The Arts**

Charles has been sitting at Erik’s kitchen table for a whole twenty seconds when the man storms in, drops into the chair next to him, and proclaims, “Fucking da Vinci.”

“Is that a general complaint or has Leonardo done something specific to offend you from beyond?” Charles asks mildly, readying himself for the inevitable.

Erik doesn’t disappoint. “That _putz_ pulled a helicopter out of his ass," he hisses. "A true genius, Charles! You know what that little Italian bastard couldn’t do, though? You know what invention what was beyond him?”

“I don’t know, darling. What?”

“A fucking surname.”

In Charles’ defense, he might not have laughed if Erik had not followed up his scathing condemnation by grabbing Charles’ smoothie and sucking petulantly at the too-long straw like an angry child.

 _“Kuk im on,”_ Erik urges, pushing a book at him. “That smug face. He knew the problems he would make one day, and he thinks it’s funny.”

Lifting the book, Charles has to admit his friend has a point. The cover art is da Vinci’s self-portrait, the one that is not in dispute, and the man’s expression does have an air of self-satisfaction. “I think it’s the beard,” Charles confides, directing Erik’s attention to the octopine mass of hair. “It’s like he’s showing off.”

Erik nods vigorously, and with that, they’re off, taking on da Vinci and the namesakes of all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

 

***

 

An hour later they are lying on a blanket under the warm summer sun. Charles watches Erik steal a spoonful of ice cream and lets him keep it without a fight. It’s a beautiful August afternoon, and Erik was adorably poker-faced when he produced the basket, checkered blanket, and the cold six pack.

Erik’s kosher drinks range from Manischewitz wine, which made Charles feel a bit sick when Erik let him have a bottle without explaining it was for mixing, to that lovely scotch he keeps for celebrating. Beers were a subject Charles had feared broaching until Erik produced a lager Charles grew up drinking. It isn't a fancy beer, and it took him a while to remember that. But it is good. It reminds him of being an undiscerning teenager and how nice that was.

Erik waits until Charles' belly is full of their deli's finest and New York's simple kosher beer to ask, “You and Moira are over for good, then?”

Charles groans. “Did you get me out of my chair and ply me with beer just so I couldn’t escape your nannying?”

"I'm not nannying."

"You are, and it's sweet."

Erik narrows his eyes. "Don't think I won't pour that on you."

He would. Charles has seen it happen. Hell, he's been the one it happened to. "Yes, Nanny. And yes, Moira and I are done. She was too much a scientist for my whimsical soul, I'm afraid."

"Charles," Erik warns.

"We didn't click," Charles blurts. He gives his eyes on Erik's ridiculous checkered blanket. "It used to be so easy, and now... Now, I think more than my spine broke in the accident."

Suddenly distressed, Erik snap upright. "You aren't broken. You're perfectly fine the way you are."

"Erik, please. You don't have to pretend-"

"I'm not!" he seethes. "You're attractive. You're funny. When you bother to use it, you have a first rate mind. You care for people. So what if you're in a fucking chair. Most of us sit on our asses all day, and we didn't get hit by a truck."

Sometimes Charles is reminded of why he likes someone in such an overpowering way, all he can do is look at them in wonder. He feels it now as he stares at Erik and bathes in his friend's anger in his behalf. There is affection thrumming behind the indignation, a fondness for Charles that goes deep in Erik's mind. Disbelief joins it, as if Erik just cannot see how Charles' chair would overrule spending hours at a time in his company.

They are getting along now, so of course Erik thinks the world of him.

Charles can admit, in his own mind, that he thinks the world of Erik in return.

Stretching a little, he lays a hand on Erik's knee. "Thank you, my friend."

Erik narrows his eyes, immediately suspicious. "For what?"

"For being you," Charles replies easily. "Angry and grouchy and terribly sweet beneath. The best friend I could have imagined for myself."

The words no longer stick horribly in his throat. Charles may not have outgrown his feelings for Erik, but he has done a damn good job making them seem small.

With a final friendly squeeze, he relinquishes his hold on Erik's knee, and they sink into companionable silence until Erik cusses at da Vinci under his breath. Then Charles is spluttering a laugh, Erik is scowling harder, and everything is all right.

 

 

 

**800: Literature & Rhetoric**

Erik is in an especially prickly mood when Charles meets him for dinner. Another fight with the board over funding, no doubt. It usually is. Money is tight for everyone, and the arts always feel it first, yes. But before he and Erik became friends, Charles had had no idea how big a role the library plays or how political it is. Erik knows the names of everyone from the local watch to the state comptroller; not only that, he actively talks to them all.

 _Justifying my salary,_ Erik calls it. Charles gets the feeling his friend secretly enjoys the challenge of it when he isn't spitting fury.

"Another round of cuts," Erik confirms as he falls into step with Charles. "Libraries are 'places of the past', according to the president of the board. He was wearing an impeccably fitted suit tonight, you'll be pleased to know. Nothing off the rack for our representatives, Charles."

And there it is. One of Erik's fiercest complaints about his library is the fact that it's in one of Yonkers' poorer neighborhoods and has to compete for funds with ones in better off areas. Oddly, his frequently gets the short end of the monetary stick.

The regulars in Erik's care are people who don't have the kind of cash lying around that can make up for the government's spending cuts, and the ones who do have a surplus tend to spend it elsewhere.

(The liquor store down the street is the library's most consistent source of donations. Whenever more budgetary cuts come, their donations increase. Charles is proud to have been a loyal customer there even before Erin told him. All this time, he and his students have inadvertently been supporting Erik.)

"They fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of libraries," Erik grouses as they slip into their favorite deli-cum-diner. His brow lifts briefly as he returns the clerk's wave- Kitty is the only person Erik routinely goes out of his way to be kind to- then returns to its previous scowl. The girl herself pops into view a moment later.

"The usual spot, right?" she asks, beaming at them with genuine affection. At Charles' nod, she hurries to their corner table to adjust it and the empty tables on either side so Charles' chair can fit on either side. One regular chair gets dragged to one table over to await Erik; the other joins her as she dashes into the back.

Charles watches her flit about with a smile. One he quickly quashes as he and Erik arrange themselves, lest he catch his friend's ire.

"What fool decided libraries were about _books_?" Erik demands the moment Charles is settled. "They're about _power_. No one gives a damn about old sheets of paper just because they're old. The rich hoard them for a different purpose, don't they?"

As a member of "the rich" and their situational representative, Charles obligingly shakes his head.

Erik nods sharply. "Exactly! Old, rare things are unique. Lock them away where only a select few can read them, and that knowledge will never be disseminated. The masses can't counter what they don't know exists!"

Erik leans forward, warming further still to his subject. "Free, public libraries address the imbalance. At the time of their conception, that meant books. Scrolls. Vellum. Now, we have e-books and DVDs- and the internet, cesspool though it is. All of them provide the means to share knowledge."

Kitty appears with glasses of water, and Erik breaks off. She offers to grab menus, but Erik waves get off, saying he wants the usual. Kitty turns to Charles with a look that says she knows Erik is worked up, and would he like his usual, too? Charles would like that as it happens. He would also like to congratulate her parents on raising a teenager more thoughtful than people twice her age but settles for quirking a smile at her.

Undaunted, Erik nevertheless takes a moment to sit back and ask Charles about his day- boring- his sister- obnoxious, enjoying the Keys with Irene- and has he done anything of interest- not particularly, though he and one of his colleagues got into it over Charles' response to an article she wrote and their departments are now locked in a prank feud neither of them wanted in the first place. He's recounting the incident with the "deleted" hard-drive, which makes Erik cringe in sympathy, when Kitty reappears with their meals.

Erik rips into his with laudable aggression, chewing it with such a look of disgust Charles nearly forgets Erik is upset about the library rather than the food. Charles is more careful with his. He didn't bother changing after class, so he's in his favorite jumper and softest trousers- it's one of those days, not so bad he wanted to cancel but bad enough that the idea of all that effort just didn't feel worth it- which would normally be fine. The problem is, Erik looks stunning. He put on the sharp gray suit that fits him so well, and thanks to his wardrobe expanding, he's gone with a blue shirt and darker tie. It was Charles' idea that Erik consider dress shirts in a color that isn't white. He's pleased that Erik took it, especially when the result is so striking. It's just difficult to sit across from him and feel people think about how sloppy he looks.

 _What is a man like_ that, they think to themselves as they look Erik over, _doing with a man like_ that _?_ Erik is polished, probably rich, definitely refined, in their minds. Charles is... not.

 _Pitiful_ comes to mind.

Erik must pity him. People think maybe the two of them are related, and how lovely, a man as beautiful as Erik taking the time to bring his probable hermit of a cousin out for a stroll.

Charles is always careful about eating now. If he spills anything down himself, someone will inevitably decide he must have a mental disability. And the pity for him flows all the harder, and Erik becomes a saint, whose burden is cleaning up after his charge makes a mess. The fact that Erik would wrinkle his nose at the idea of sainthood is mild consolation.

Charles never used to mind being a frumpy dresser. His personality would make up for any flaws is his appearance. It still does if Erik's continued friendship is any way to judge.

The flaw in that philosophy is it only works if people want to talk to him. If they dismiss him the moment they see him, he has nothing.

"-les? Charles!"

Shaken out of his thoughts, Charles blinks the world back into focus. "Pardon?"

Erik lets out a breath. "You got that _look_ in your eye, and you didn't answer when I called your name. I thought you were hurt."

He really had. Charles can feel the uptick in the beat of Erik's thoughts as clearly as a heartbeat. The mind needs time to regain equilibrium just like the body, and Erik's is still working to slow down. Unlike the body, the mind can say why it was agitated. Erik's is blaring out concern that Charles might have been hurt. If another psionic had attacked him, Erik would have been unable to help.

"Thank you, my friend," Charles says. He puts his hand over Erik's- that should be fine, just a normal, comforting gesture between friends- and gives a gentle squeeze. Erik's hand stays clenched but relaxes slightly under Charles' palm. "I'm fine. Just caught up in my thoughts. I didn't realize I was ignoring you."

"Ignoring me wasn't the problem," Erik says mildly. His hand clenches tight once more. "Not knowing if you were hurt was."

There is something uniquely rewarding about being the object of concern to someone as reticent as Erik. After all the troubles he can bear without anyone knowing, the possibility of Charles getting hurt makes him blanch.

"Hey."

Erik cocks his head. "Yeah?"

"I think I've lost my appetite for the night. You?" Erik nods. "What do you say we get Kitty to bring us doggie bags and go for a walk?"

The other customers largely ignore them when Erik and Charles finally leave. A few wonder about Erik, but their thoughts are directed to his outburst earlier. His fear was obvious to them as leaned across the table, one hand reaching to shake Charles when Charles came to. His relief was equally clear. Charles hadn't seen such a dramatic shift in his friend, but every mind he feels remember it has the same impression of Erik's expression melting from fear to eye-watering relief.

Charles doesn't ask Erik about it.

They end up in a park, Erik sat on the edge of a bench with Charles and his chair sat next to him. Neither of them has said anything in too long. Tension has seeped into the silence, but Charles can't think of a way to break it. Every topic that occurs to him feels indelicate.

Something important is brewing, and Charles can't shake the feeling that whatever breaks the quiet should be equally weighty. If Charles knew what it was, he might have an idea of what to say. All he can think of is the warm pressure of Erik's mind where it's lying against his.

"My father was illiterate."

For the second time in a day, Charles startles. Erik is looking at the ground between his feet, but his words can only be meant for Charles.

"He picked up enough English to get by when he was brought here after the war," Erik continues. He quirks a smile. "He got skilled enough to convince an American girl from a good Jewish family to marry him- which he used to insist was plenty. Of course it wasn't. My grandmother didn't mind interpreting for him, but he hated having to rely on her."

The feeling of significance presses down harder on Charles. It sits heavily on his chest, bearing down on his chest hard enough to choke his lungs.

Erik draws a long breath. "He wound up isolating himself when she died. I hardly saw him at all after her funeral. My Yiddish was weak back then, and I was ashamed to speak to him in our tongue. He was a good man. He deserved to hear me stutter for once instead of him."

Laying a hand on one of Erik's white fists, Charles gives Erik a squeeze in support.

"You can't blame yourself for being a child. You were in your twenties, weren't you? That's still young, old man."

"I can't help it."

"No, but I can be there to remind you."

Rather than laugh, Erik grows more somber still. "Thank you, Charles, but I prefer to rely on myself."

There is more to it than that. Charles' gift it heavy-laden with Erik's creeping sense of loss. He couldn't not feel it if he tried, and his gut says he should try.

"Is something wrong, Erik?" he asks. Erik's mood dips lower, and Charles begins to worry. His friend is prone to bouts of depression. This feels different from that, but Erik's moods have been erratic even for him lately. "Erik, my friend, please. I can feel your pain. Tell me what's happened."

"Nothing, Charles. Nothing at all."

Erik makes to stand up, but as he does, Charles catches the tail-end of a thought.

It is more image than word, as most fantasies are, and Charles can hardly believe it. In Erik's mind, Charles asks him to stay. Charles takes him by the arm, reels him down into his lap, and kisses him. _"I love you, too,"_ says the fantasy. _"I won't ever leave you."_ Erik curls close and-

_Get out!_

Charles flies back into his own skull. Eyes watering, he blinks up at Erik, who is standing wild-eyed before him. Tremors wrack through him hard enough to be visible. Through Charles' grip on his wrist, they shake through him, too.

"So you know," Erik spits. "You've solved the puzzle of me. You're free to leave now."

Charles could kick himself. "That isn't what I meant."

"Wasn't it?" Erik challenges. His eyes are bright, his presence in Charles' mind fearsome in its gravity.

Waving a tendril of his gift disperses the illusion, and Erik is instead a terribly small presence. His tiny fists remain clenched tight. He wants a fight.

Yet he does not.

"I meant you are complex," Charles explains. "You juggle a thousand variables in seconds and react accordingly. You're a singularly powerful mutant, yet you triple lock your door at night. My gift intrigues you more than it scares you. Adults avoid you, yet their children adore you. They have their first crushes on you and feel safe in your library. They trust you. That alone speaks volumes to your character. Children are not as simple as we think.

"So you see, you are not a puzzle to be solved- that's already been done by you. I'm only here to marvel at the many tiny pieces and the picture they form."

Erik swallows. "And this picture? It's good, is it?"

"Better than good. It's one I could look at every day and never tire of."

The shaking, which had slowed, worsens again. "Charles."

"Go out with me," Charles says. "Today, tomorrow- I don't care. But give me a chance, Erik. I've wanted you for a long time now."

"You... want me?"

"You and your anger and your books. I want the whole package."

Erik kisses him like a dying man given the cure. He grabs Charles' face and buries his fingers in Charles' hair. He nips lightly at Charles' lower lip then tongues it in apology.

It's as good as kisses get, and Charles is more than happy. When Erik leads him home, Charles holds his hand like the world is theirs.

 

 

 

**900: Geography & History**

Erik gets home from temple after Charles has gotten ready for bed. He breezes in, eyes bright and hair mussed, mind chirping happily, and flops down on the bed beside Charles with a happy grunt.

“I hope you took your shoes off,” Charles tells him mildly.

“I hope you took your pants off,” Erik counters.

Rolling his eyes, Charles returns to his book and only acknowledges his husband again when Erik makes a production of heaving himself up and plopping his head on Charles’ shoulder. _Hello again_ , his mind purrs, which Charles rewards with a distracted kiss to Erik’s sweaty temple. It isn’t all an act. Moira got him into the series, which has been a fantastic way to decompress from the scholarly shit flinging. Gabaldon is spinning the tale of a strange sort of absentee love triangle, and if nothing else, Charles has grown attached enough to Claire that he has to know if she ends up getting back to her time.

The sex scenes make him a bit wistful, but he is hardly deprived of it when he has Erik. If he were to tally it up, which he hasn’t done in a while and has no intention of doing in the future, he has a sneaking suspicion he might be getting more now than he did before the accident. His thirties were supposed to see a nice, convenient settling of his libido; instead, he’s got a husband who makes the soccer moms titter and who missed the libido memo.

Charles stopped trying to anticipate what would get Erik hot and bothered early on. The man’s psyche has its own logic. Attempting to decipher it has only ever seen Charles unsatisfied and Erik confused and hurt.

Spontaneity, Charles had been certain, would be the first casualty of sex post traffic accident. Contrary bastard that he is, Erik had to prove him wrong. The sheer amount of imagination- and planning on his husband's part- necessary for some of their adventures…

“You’re remembering the shed, aren’t you?”

As it happens, the shed had featured prominently in Charles' thoughts. Erik truly outdid himself with that one. Charles refuses to give him the satisfaction of admitting it, though. His husband is already too certain he’s getting some tonight, and confirming Erik has Charles’ mind on the subject is the first step to sleeping with a wet spot. As he was hoping he would actually get to sleep- in the quiet, snoring sense- with Erik tonight, Charles captures the hand trying to steal his book and holds it where Erik can’t interfere. “I’m reading.”

Erik covers a rude noise with a cough. Poorly. “That must be an exciting paragraph, given how long you’ve been staring at it.”

“Sex scene,” Charles explains loftily. “Very intense.”

Nodding his understanding, Erik murmurs, “I don’t blame you. All that description of all that Scottish landscape gets me in the mood, too.”

Ah, yes. He can read from up there, can’t he? Unlike Charles, who lost that battle against age last year, Erik hasn’t needed glasses. But he will eventually, and when that day comes, Charles intends to make up for the field day Erik had when Charles came home with his. After he’s shagged the hell out of him- Erik looks delightful in glasses.

Back in reality, Erik has fitted himself snugly against Charles’ side. Erik’s grey suit pants do nothing to hide the tent in the crotch.

“You probably do get off on the scenery, you kinky fucker,” Charles grouches.

Erik hums, the sound neither agreement nor question.

“Honestly, darling. What is it about going to temple that gets you going? You’re always coming back randy and-”

“And?”

“And, I don’t know, _cuddly_."

Snorting, Erik shrugs. “You could come with me some time, you know. Find out for yourself.”

“I know they’re progressive,” Charles says softly, even as he tilts his head for the kiss Erik presses just under his jaw, “but I really don’t think they’d be happy about us fucking in the lavatory.”

“They won’t know if we lock the door.”

“I love you dearly, Erik, but you are not a quiet lay, and I refuse to be that goy who fucked nice Erik Lehnsherr in a place of worship.”

Though his mind doesn’t stop the smug, _See? You’re learning,_ Erik lets the conversation go. That they were already married when Erik felt he was ready to try going back has been a point of contention for a while. Charles went with him to the first temple, and after an uncomfortable encounter with someone less than happy about Erik’s choice of spouse, he had his fill. Erik hadn’t been pleased when he finally got to the bottom of why Charles had wanted him to go to the next service solo- he’s on his fourth congregation now, but Charles suspects the tour of local congregations is coming to a close. Erik feels comfortable in the latest one, and unlike the others, which had been at the far end of Westchester, this one is in nearby Brewster.

It is also, as Erik pointed out over dinner one night, more accessible than the one Charles saw.

There is more to Charles’ reluctance than accessibility, but that is a conversation for another night. For this one, Erik has given up the pretense of just wanting to be near and is actively taking over Charles’ lap. His first obstacle is the book, which he plucks out of Charles’ hands with a look of disappointment.

“Don’t lose my place please,” Charles asks, fighting not to smile.

Erik sighs but uses the bookmark Charles hands him before tossing the book to the floor.

“Oi! Careful with that. I got it from the library.”

“No need to worry then,” Erik announces. “I know the librarian. He’s an understanding man.”

Charles raises a brow. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same one? Because the one I know is a hard ass.”

“Is that so?” Erik knees forward, the better to settle himself where Charles can pull his head down for a quick kiss. His hands are warm through the thin cotton when they settle on Charles’ shoulders. “Tell me more about him.”

“Let me see,” Charles drawls, sliding a hand through Erik’s hair. Even damp with sweat from the helmet, it’s soft, and Erik’s let it grow out long enough to form loose curls when he hasn’t slicked it back. Wrapping one loosely around a finger, Charles gives it a gentle tug. Erik groans low and pleased, his eyes falling shut. “I hear he’s merciless about overdue returns. And the fines- no checking anything out until you’ve paid your late fine.”

To his telepathy, Erik’s mind has the feel of putty. Warm and pliant and just a bit clingy.

“I heard something interesting about him the other day, though.”

“Mm?”

“Apparently, he’s very sweet when you get to know him. He’s good with children, always patient when he’s showing them how to get what they’re looking for and gentle when he scolds them. Even the troublesome ones adore him.”

Cracking one eye open, Erik gives him a skeptical look. “That doesn’t sound like the man I know.”

“Does it not?” Charles frees his hand from Erik’s hair and raises the other, bringing both up to cup Erik’s jaw and draw his head down. His gift shudders when Erik bends to Charles’ direction. Fitting himself to Charles is an old habit, but Erik’s mind thrills at it still. He has the person he spent years thinking was a figment of the imagination, then found and pined after with little hope of anything coming of it, and Charles is happy with them. “What if I told you he has a stupidly handsome face and a big dick?”

Erik’s other eye pops open. His lips twitch into a grin. “Sounds more like him.”

 _I don’t know why I love you,_ Charles tells him, but he pushes his affection along with it. “Well, you’ve gone and killed that game. I don’t know how I’ll fuck you now.”

Letting out a whine, Erik grinds down on Charles’ lap. Charles watches him move and feels a pang of jealousy. He isn’t the first person Erik has taken to bed, but he wants desperately to be the last. The sinuous shimmy of his hips as he moves over Charles is a perfectly smooth motion; the play of muscles shifting beneath his fitted dress shirt is obscene, his belly fluttering beneath Charles’ thumbs when his hands settle on Erik’s trim waist. It’s all for Charles. Erik’s mind is full of Charles; it’s hot with the shape of Charles’ hands and the promise of all the places they might touch, shaky with the memory of Charles’ taste on his tongue. He can feel Charles’ hard length between his legs and shakes with the certainty that Charles did it intentionally. He knew Erik was going to come home and want him, and he chose to indulge him. Charles wanted to be with Erik.

The softer side of Erik’s personality is there for anyone with the will to look. But this… This part of him is just for Charles.

Leaning up, Charles presses a line of kisses along Erik’s jaw. “You make a compelling argument,” he tells his chin. Then he kisses that, too.

“Speaking of arguments, I have an idea.”

 

***

 

Five minutes later, Erik is naked, Charles is naked and propped up on pillows, and the bottle of lube is warming between his thighs. The three of them are lying on their sides facing each other. Usually that would be a good thing. Charles loves Erik’s body; he loves touching him and watching Erik touch himself. His lovely face begging Charles to touch him, eyes scrunched up over wrinkled nose and mouth parted around light pants, and the way it smooths when he finishes. That last bit of tension seeps out of him, leaving Erik boneless with pleasure. He gets clingy after, his mind tugging Charles’ over him the way his body pulls Charles close. Even beyond bed, when Erik is just changing or walking around, Charles enjoys the sight of him.

Right now, though, Charles refuses to be swayed by Erik’s hard, pink nipples. He isn’t interested in the ginger curls covering his chest or the way the trail of hair down the middle of Erik’s firm belly darkens as it goes. He doesn’t give two shits about Erik’s thick, heavy cock or his firm thighs.

“This is ridiculous.”

“You said you wanted to learn,” Erik reminds him. “We’ll start simple.”

“I’m not going to remember any of it,” Charles warns.

Erik refuses to be dissuaded- if anything, his mind feels more interested than it had earlier. “We’ll just have to keep practicing until you do.”

Clearly, Charles is either going along with this or taking care of himself. “Fine. But no laughing!”

“First word,” Erik tells him brightly, blatantly not making any promises. “ _Leksye_.”

Charles repeats it. Badly, even to his ears. Erik purses his lips, at least making an effort not to laugh in his face. Some part of Charles probably appreciates the effort.

“What’s it mean?”

Grinning, Erik says, “Lesson. And tonight you can call me your _lerer_. That means-”

“Teacher.” At Erik’s look of surprise, Charles rolls his eyes. “I do remember some of the German I learned in München. Yiddish being, what, two thirds German, I’m not completely lost.”

“So you’ll know what I mean when I say you’re a _tuches un a halb_.”

“No, I know you’re telling me I have a big ass because I grew up in New York, and I’ve never known a New Yorker who didn’t know what a _tuches_ is. And it isn’t a big leap from half to _halb_.”

Rather than be discouraged, Erik beams. “Then let’s get to the good part.”

 

***

 

Charles does his best to concentrate on Erik, but it’s difficult to remember how to say “bedroom” when Erik is running barely-there fingers over his face.

He wasn’t expecting a practical like this, but that’s Erik. He’s full of surprises.

The back of a finger brushes over his cheek. _Bak._

Along his jaw. _Kayer_.

Down his chin. _Kin._

Only a flash of arousal and a soft, _Kush_ , warns him of Erik’s change of plan.

The kiss lands off-center. It only just catches Charles’ upper lip but is quickly followed by another. _Moyl,_ he explains, sealing their mouths together. He doesn’t let Charles push for more; all his attempts at moving things forward, at turning it into something deeper, meet with Erik’s unyielding refusal. Until, finally, Erik thinks, _Tsung_ , and Charles gets the searing kiss he’s been dying for.

Without breaking the kiss, Erik raises an arm and wraps it firmly around Charles. _Rukn,_ his mental voice says. Physically, he scoots closer, letting Charles’ mouth go for a second only to return, the better to run his hand over the knobs of vertebrae down Charles’ back as he continues. _Ruknbeyn_. As he has from the start, Charles does his best to mimic the motion. He’s more sensitive than Erik; Charles has to fight not to lose track of what Erik’s doing and just sink into the pleasure.

Sliding his hand back toward himself, Erik fits his hand to the narrowest part of Charles’ side. _Talye_. He moves it down to the curve Charles’s hip. Lend.

The next word comes for a part of Charles where sensation is dulled. _Tuches,_ Erik thinks, before correcting himself- _tuches in droissen_. A wave of deep satisfaction washes over him- _zoftig_ \- and Charles shudders.

 _Do keep up,_ Erik thinks at him. The haughty tone he tries for is ruined by the way Erik’s voice is breathy even in thought.

Even so, a challenge is a challenge. Charles always was a precocious child.

 _And this?_ he asks, taking his hand from Erik’s back and closing it around his cock.

The only reply Charles gets at first is a wave of lust and _fuck it_ and _want you_. Erik doesn’t give into it, but Charles hadn’t expected him to.

 _Too many_ , Erik chuckles, even as his mind pinches Charles’ mental backside. _But I appreciate the enthusiasm._

Grinning to himself, Charles grabs the lube from where it's been warming up between his legs and uncaps it. He pours a bit over Erik and does nothing to disguise his slippery plans. In another time, the full-body shiver Erik makes at Charles' interest would have had him dangerously worked up.

Little victories, as the doctors said.

"Please don't think of other men when you've got my prick in your hand," Erik grouses. He's kidding. Mostly.

There is still some of that boy who had to scrimp and save for anything nice in the man who wears expensive tailored suits to work at the local struggling library. It explains the wear on them- Erik dresses well, but he puts the people's happiness first. If that requires getting down on his knees to reach a child's book on horses, so be it.

Charles really did find himself a good one.

"Love, if you could focus on the task at hand..."

Right.

He runs his hand over Erik's shaft, enjoying the heft of the smooth, cut length. Erik pushes into his fist as Charles gets a rhythm going. Watching the way his husband's body bunches and flexes fills Charles with heat.

Erik's mouth falls open, his eyes shut. His breath comes in sharper, harder pants.

Charles puts his free hand on Erik's chest. Erik's nipples aren't as sensitive as Charles', but giving one a pinch does get him a pretty little moan. So he does it again.

And again.

Eyes blinking open, Erik watches his progress with heavy-lidded eyes.

_Can we...?_

A memory blooms before Charles' eyes. It's been a while since we did it, but he enjoyed himself. It would make Erik happy to do something for him, too.

_Go on then._

Erik hauls himself to life at once. He sits up fast and clambers over Charles' lap, straddling him with alacrity.

His cock juts out from the thatch of dark hair across his pelvis. If they had the time, Charles would haul Erik forward and suck him off. The impatient heat building in Erik's belly says that won't happen today. Charles isn't that upset. As much as he loves getting Erik off like that, he loved the show he gets this way, too.

Taking them both firmly in one hand, Erik strokes his hand down. Charles' artificial hardon may not come with the same pressing _need want now now now_ he used to feel, but watching Erik jerk them together could make any man scrabble at the man's scratchy, scruffy face and pull him into a series of messy kisses.

Erik comes first, the force of his orgasm rocketing through Charles hard enough to push his own. They both collapse, Charles backwards into the mattress and Erik forward onto Charles. Neither moves for a long time. They simply lie together. Erik's breath slowly calms from heaving breaths of exertion to soft pants that tickle as they blow over Charles' ear where Erik buried his nose in his hair.

"Love you," Charles murmurs, and Erik's smile grows wider. Throwing his arms around him, Charles rubs their cheeks together. He's feeling warm and happy, and even the heavy weight pressing into him can't kill that.

"Love you, too," Erik says back. The words are slow and sticky, and Charles already knows his husband is done for the night. It's adorable, really, though he can't help but wish he weren't going to be the wet spot tonight.

Erik flops to the side a moment later. He hits the bed with a grunt that does nothing to hide his grin. "Bedside drawer," he says lightly. "Your side."

 _Oh,_ Charles thinks as his blind groping comes to an abrupt end. "My own package of wet wipes? Erik, you spoil me."

"I don't come on just anyone."

Smiling to himself, Charles does what he can before tossing the mess at the bin and navigating himself onto his side. Erik cuddles up to him the moment he can, his arm flopping over Charles' waist and tugging him closer.

"Good night, darling," Charles says quietly, taking Erik's hand in his. "I do love you."

 _"Ich hob dir lieb."_ Erik hums happily. _"Shlaf, gelibteh.”_

Wrapped up securely in Erik's arms, Charles does.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the worst kind of self-indulgence. I wanted a cliché librarian/mechanic AU but without the stereotypical quiet and shy librarian who bears no resemblance to the ones I’ve known and worked with. Thus: Erik. (I realize that he’s neglectful of his duties here, but shh. Charles is special circumstances.)
> 
> Yiddish translations (not including ones defined in-text):
> 
>  _Yo?_ l Yes?  
>  _Du gefelst mir zaier._ l You please me a great deal.  
>  _Sveter_ l Sweater  
>  _Putz_ l Dick (used colloquially in English for a stupid person)  
>  _Kuk im on._ l Look at him.  
>  _A tuches un a halb_ l Someone with a big ass; literally “a backside and a half”  
>  _Rukn_ l Back  
>  _Toches in droissen_ l Bare behind  
>  _Zoftig_ l literally juicy; plump, sensuous  
>  _"Ich hob dir lieb."_ l "I love you."  
>  _"Shlaf, gelibteh.”_ "Sleep, beloved."
> 
> If I got any wrong, or my transliteration is inconsistent, feel free to correct me.
> 
> I didn’t come up with the Yiddish sticker pun. I saw it as a button somewhere on the internet. For the curious, the “squiggle” is the letter ה.


End file.
